The present invention relates to load handling apparatus and more particularly to apparatus for transferring a load to a pallet.
A method commonly used in the transportation of materials is to load boxes or bags of the materials onto pallets and to move the pallet and its load as a unit. Normally, the load is secured to the pallet by straps, a sleeve of shrink plastic or by other means. The pallets are formed so that they may be handled by a fork lift truck. The unitized pallet loads are transported by railroad and/or truck transportation systems to warehouses and from there to the ultimate destination. The utilized loads are then broken up and the load materials are separated from the pallets. The ultimate destination locations must then store the pallets and ship them back to the load-pallet unitizing location. In many industries, the cost of storage and shipment of the pallets and, in addition, the cost of lost and broken pallets, represents a sizable cost factor. For this reason, cardboard sheets, called slip sheets, have been considered as a substitute for the wooden or plastic pallets. One of the problems attendant with the use of slip sheets is that a unitized slip sheeted load cannot be handled by the conventional fork lift truck in use in most receiving installations. Although special fork lift trucks have been devised for such operations, they are very large and expensive and cannot be used at smaller installations because of size and economic limitations.